The Wrath of a Dragon, the Regret of a King
by krysta-durin
Summary: Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain, realises too late the peril of those he had pledged to protect. One-shot, movie-verse. Character: Thorin, angst and hurt.


"Revenge? Revenge! I will show you revenge!"

The liquid gold that coated the deep red scales of Smaug's back glistened in the firelight of the Kings Hall. Screeching in pain and seething with rage, the monstrous dragon barrelled its body through the front gate of Erebor, disappearing through the rubble until there was nothing but the echoes of its shrieks ringing in Thorin's ears.

Thorin's hand clenched achingly around the steel chain that ran from the Dwarven-carved ceiling, yet the pain was non-existent. After one hundred-and-three hard, _long_ years, the King under the Mountain had not only reclaimed his rightful Kingdom.

He had finally taken back his _home._

Yet there was not an ounce of his being that felt the relief he knew he should feel. He did not feel elated, nor unrestricted happiness.

The cold metal beneath his fingers dug into flesh the second that realisation of where the destroyer of his people was headed.

"No!" Thorin cried out, his hoarse voice quaking with fear. There was a tightening in his chest that caused the air to catch in his throat. In all of the one-hundred and ninety-four years he had endured upon Middle Earth, he had only felt such a sensation less than a handful of times before.

When his home, and his people succumbed to the fiery wrath that Smaug wrought down upon Erebor.

A second time, when his grandfather was beheaded before his eyes at the battle of Khazad-dûm, and his father, the great Thrain, was lost.

The last time he had been frozen by fear, something of rarity for the race of Dwarves, was when the husband of his sister had been slain in a night raid by Orcs.

Fain's caravan had been ambushed while trading between villages surrounding the Blue Mountains. The news had reached Thorin first, and as leader of the Dwarven kingdom and the brother of Fain's wife, it was his duty to inform Dís of his death.

Thorin had struggled outside of Dís's door, the small home illuminated with the warm orange glow of the fireplace that filled the cosy living room. A chorus of squeals sounded from inside, and Thorin's heart had clenched at the thought of his two nephews that were now without a father.

_Fili and Kili._

The two young boys had barely reached three decades old; they were still children, their world revolved around stories that their father had told them of distant lands and unfathomable beings.

But that was all they were; _just stories_.

Thorin knew that this would destroy the Dwarflings. It would make the monsters in Fain's stories not only real, but the creatures that stole their father from them.

"Kili, be careful!" Fili cried out, the worry evident in his voice. Several seconds of silence ensued before an eruption of laughter sounded through the walls.

Thorin had prayed to Mahal that there were some way that he did not have to do it. He wished that he was able to prolong the inevitable, to give them as many moments of ignorance as he was able to.

He had counted to one-hundred, inhaled a deep breath into lungs that threatened to collapse under pressure, and opened the front door.

He shook the memory from his mind. Standing atop the boulders that had been placed in the hall of Durin, Thorin's whole being was numb. He had unleashed the monster, something that had once been a story told to children to keep their wild imaginations sated, upon not only the innocent women and children of Lake Town.

His attempt to regain the glory of a homeland once lost had also brought down the fire of a Dragon's revenge upon the two nephews Thorin had sworn to protect in place of their dead father.

The heirs of Thorin, and the sons that were never his own, were about to die because of his weakness in allowing a wizard to convince him of a fool's quest.

Thorin's fists shook in fear and guilt; with an agonising cry into the hall that had become nothing more than just an empty chamber, Thorin Oakenshield hung his head low in defeat.

* * *

><p><strong>So this is a head canon that I've been imagining for a few days, and I decided to take a break from study to put it into words :) I can just imagine the paralyzing fear that Thorin would have in knowing that Fili and Kili are in Lake Town as Smaug attacks. Hopefully the flashback expands on the fatherly role he has found himself in after Fain's death, where the two have become like sons to Thorin. <strong>

**Anyway, thanks for reading guys!**


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